Skull Morphometry of the Lion (Panthera leo), Dog (Canis lupus familiaris) and Cat (Felis catus)

Abstract

The skull morphology of the lion (4), dog (15) and cat (4) are described and compared in this work. Meas- urements of their skull length, weight (without mandible), cranial length and width, facial length and width, skull index, cranial index, facial index, orbital index and cranial capacity are given. Correlations between these measurements were also examined for each species. These results are discussed in terms of the usage of these morphometric measurements in several basic and clinical applications as well as in the intelligence status of these species. Four tables and three figures supported the results of this study. Strong correlations (R> 0.7, R < -0.7) were seen between 63% of measurements in the lion’s skull enablingregression models to be constructed that could be used to predict measurements such as skull weight if facial width is known. This differed from the cat where 38% of measurements were correlated and the dog where only 3 parameters of measurements were correlated.